Nobel Laureate Douglass C. North will give the keynote address during the annual conference of the International Society of New Institutional Economics to be hosted by the University of Colorado at Boulder Sept. 21-24.
About 300 professors and students from 25 countries in the fields of economics, business, law, anthropology and political science are expected to attend the conference, hosted by CU-Boulder for the first time. Lee Alston, professor of economics and director of the Environment and Society Program in the Institute of Behavioral Science at CU-Boulder, is president-elect of the organization.
The conference, which is not open to the public, will be held at the Millennium Harvest House at 1325 28th St. in Boulder.
New institutional economics is a field within the social sciences in which researchers examine how institutions, such as government, prevent or expand economic growth.
"Urban Water Reform: What We Know, What We Need to Know," "Energy Security for Economic Growth" and "The Political Economy of Mining Law Reform" are some of the topics to be explored during panel discussions.
North, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, will discuss "The Natural State: Or Why Economic Development Is So Difficult to Achieve" Sept. 21 at 4:20 p.m. in the hotel ballroom.
North won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1993 "for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change." Much of his research is on the long-term development of Europe and the United States, and analyzing the role institutions play in economic growth.
The International Society for New Institutional Economics was founded in 1996 and is based at Washington University.
For more information about the conference, including a schedule, visit the Web site at .